Lunacy
by Kazaera
Summary: Luna Lovegood, a midnight excursion and an encounter by moonlight. Slight crossover with White Wolf's WoD.


**Disclaimer:** Luna Lovegood, Hogwarts and all else pertaining to Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, not me. Everything from the World of Darkness belongs to White Wolf, except Alexandra. She's mine.

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A/N: For those unfamiliar with White Wolf's World of Darkness, a brief summary of the things mentioned is at the bottom, although it isn't really necessary in order to understand the story.

The stars are bright tonight.

She should not be out, she knows it - curfew is long past, she must get up early tomorrow and the prefects will be patrolling. But the stars are bright, tomorrow is an eternity away and she knows the prefects will not come tonight, not to the corridor where she stands now.

She traces the constellations with her finger, smiling... here is Draco, and there Virgo, Orion-hunter, with three stars in his belt, and Aquarius, an old friend much-loved, water-man, she has not seen him in too long. Only in Astronomy, but the teacher makes the stars dark and cold, just pinpoints of light, and the others whisper and laugh while Aquarius does not answer.

And there, shining silver upon castle, grounds, forest, into empty corridors and abandoned classrooms and one small pyjama-clad figure, is her namesake - Luna. _Waning gibbous,_ she notes absently, sees half-a-face smiling down at her, perhaps a bit more, but dwindling.

Sometimes she wonders why her parents gave her this name, with the gift-curse attached to it - Luna, lunar, lunatic. The moon who rules madmen, who hides during the daylight hours only to emerge while all is sleeping. Not fixed, but always waxing or waning, growing or dwindling, mysterious and oh so far away...

_Lunacy_. She knows her classmates laugh at her when her back is turned, tease her, snub her - but they are blind, blind and deaf... she pities them, they who sleep in darkness now, they who cannot feel the magic of nights like these, and who call her mad when they realise she sees more than they.

A whisper behind her, a shadow passes across the moon, a spiral of dust in the not-unmoving air...

"Hello, Alexandra." Her voice - soft, she does not want to disturb the night, Aquarius would not like it - makes the dust-motes dance as the figure moves next to her.

"Hello, Luna." A second voice, lilting, accented as her companion stares up at the stars.

In daylight, under the unforgiving light of the sun, the blind ones would sneer at her and scoff. Alexandra is slight, thin, and not-pretty, her hair a faded blonde turning mouse-brown at the roots, her Muggle clothing scuffed and worn. But the blind ones are not here and Alexandra will never see sunlight again, so the moon colors her hair silver, her skin smooth and alabaster-pale, her eyes unfathomable pools of darkness, like a fallen angel in the twilight.

And the pain is sharp in her neck, but the magic in it sharper, and for a moment she feels _connected_ - as if her feet reach down to the bones of the castle, entwined in rich soil, and her hands stretch up to the stars, tracing the constellations again - and there is Aquarius, smiling as she brushes his face in greeting, gathering star-dust on her fingertips-

- and the moon, no longer unreachable but so near, and she touches her namesake gently, gently gently for it would not do to disturb this Lady Luna, or is it she herself?

But the pain is passing and she retreats, back into her body which drapes about her like ill-fitting clothing, she must grab at the window-ledge to keep from falling, and Alexandra's lips are stained black with blood.

"What do you see?"

Luna stares out at the grounds, at Aquarius's familiar face, at the half-face not-smiling now, soft silver light against darkness...

"I see magic." Magic, not memorised spells nor strict formulae, but magic that is mystical, unfathomable, all around her, magic which the blind ones cannot see and will never understand. Magic at its deepest, most mysterious, always changing, like the moon...  
Alexandra understands.

"What do you see?" It is her turn to pose the question now, to her mystery-magic-vampire-friend who gives her understanding in exchange for pain, companionship for blood, for even with the stars for company it can be lonely sometimes.

Alexandra stares out at the grounds, but she does not see the same things Luna does, for she is mad as well but _different_-mad, she does not see the stars or magic or Lady Luna, but other things, frightening things that make Luna glad she is moon-mad and not blood-mad, but still, she wants, needs to know...

"I see death. Fire consumes the lands, destruction inescapable. The rivers run with blood, the Reaper stalks the lands, all shall perish as Gehenna comes."

Her voice trails off to a whisper. "It is not long now. They wake."

The next morning Professor Lupin teaches the second-year Ravenclaws about vampires. If he notices Luna's secretive smile, he does not say.

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**A/N:** For those unfamiliar with Vampire the Masquerade:

A short summary: Vampires exist. They're divided into different clans, each vampire being of the clan of its sire (the one who made him/her a vampire). There are around thirteen in all, and each clan has certain strengths and one distinct weakness common to all vampires of that clan, and certain characteristics and skills typical of it. For example, the Tremere are the mage-vampires, the only ones who use magic (well, a type of it) and the Nosferatu are all hideously ugly. Alexandra is a Malkavian, and the defining characteristic of Clan Malkavian is that all Malkavian vampires are insane. Perhaps in an obvious way, perhaps not-so-obvious, but every single one of them has some kind of dementia.

Somehow people tend to interpret this as a type of "La la la I'm a hyper six-year-old who babbles about cheesecakes!" dementia. I prefer my version. :P

Alexandra is talking about Gehenna, the Apocalypse, when the Antediluvians (some uber-powerful legendary vampires from whom all the modern ones are descended) will wake and, basically, kill everything. These are the "they" she's referring to.


End file.
